The invention generally relates to selective mid-call call forwarding and, more particularly, to a method for providing selective mid-call call forwarding from a mobile station (MS) associated with a subscriber to a wireless service provider and will be described with particular reference thereto. However, it is to be appreciated that the invention is also amenable to other applications. For example, providing selective mid-call call forwarding from any type of telephone device.
Call forwarding services for non-wireless and wireless telephone subscribers are known. However, none of the current call forwarding services allow an MS (or other type of telephone device) user to selectively initiate call forwarding for an incoming call in the middle of call processing (e.g., while the called telephone device is ringing). For example, several commonly-assigned patents identified below disclose call forwarding services for wireless telephone subscribers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,583,564 to Rao et al. and assigned to Lucent Technologies, herein incorporated by reference, discloses intelligent call forwarding in an intelligent network. The intelligent network includes a Service Switching Point (SSP), a Service Control Point (SCP), and a Service Management System (SMS). A call to a network subscriber is routed to the SSP which is used to detect Call Forwarding “triggers”—conditions which require the SSP to initiate selective Call Forwarding service. When a Call Forwarding trigger is detected, the SSP passes the calling party's number to the SCP and requests call handling instructions from the SCP. The SCP provides the call handling instructions, as provisioned by the subscriber, to the SSP, and the SSP then forwards the call in accordance with the instructions. The SMS formulates and sends commands to the SCP for such purposes as changing the stored subscriber instructions or updating service features. By provisioning the SCP with appropriate instructions the forwarding destination for a call may be made to depend upon the time of day, day of the week, caller's identity, and/or status of the called telephone.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,151,503 to Chavez and assigned to Lucent Technologies discloses a subscriber activated wireless telephone call rerouting system that enables the subscriber to reroute incoming calls to an alternate destination that is off network. This service can be activated from either the subscriber's wireless telephone or from any other telephone that is part of the wireless telephone network or the non-wireless public switched telephone network and can be deactivated by the subscriber simply initiating a call from their wireless telephone. The alternate destination selected by the subscriber can be any telephone that is part of the wireless telephone network or the non-wireless public switched telephone network, either a local calling area number or a long distance number.
A user of an MS (or other type of telephone device) may prefer to answer certain calls while forwarding other calls to another telephone number. By using, for example, caller ID information, the user can distinguish between calls he/she wants to answer and calls he/she wants to forward. As a practical example, when a subscriber is attending a meeting, rather than having all calls forwarded, the subscriber may like to selectively screen calls so that he/she may answer calls from one particularly important person, while selectively forwarding other calls to another telephone number. Depending on the circumstances, a subscriber may also like to take unexpected calls from certain individuals, while selectively forwarding other calls to another telephone number. Current call forwarding services do not provide for such types of selective call forwarding.
Thus, there is motivation for a selective mid-call call forwarding feature from a mobile station.